Post-game notes

NEW YORK RANGERS POST-GAME NOTES
March 6, 2010 – New York Rangers 0, Washington Capitals 2 (Game #65, Road #31)
• The Blueshirts were defeated by the Washington Capitals, 2-0, tonight at the Verizon Center, and are now 4-2-1 in their last seven contests.
• The Rangers are now 29-28-8 (66 pts.) overall, including a 15-13-3 (33 pts.) mark in 31 road games this season.
• Goaltender Alex Auld made his Rangers debut, stopping 26 of 28 shots in the contest, and is now 9-7-3 on the season. Auld was claimed off re-entry waivers from the Dallas Stars on Feb. 27.
• Rangers Alternate Captain led all skaters with five hits, and registered five shots in 20:34 of icetime. Entering tonight’s contest, Callahan ranked second in the NHL with 246 hits on the season.
• Defenseman Dan Girardi blocked a game-high four shots in 21:49 of icetime, and has now registered nine blocked shots in the last two contests. Girardi was tied for sixth in the NHL with 140 blocked shots on the season entering tonight’s contest.
• Marian Gaborik recorded three shots on goal and logged 20:08 of icetime, in his return to the lineup after missing the previous three games, and four of the last five, due to injury.
• The Rangers won 33-of-58 faceoffs for a 57% success rate, led by Captain Chris Drury (11-of-16, 69%) and Erik Christensen (11-of-17, 65%).
• Michal Rozsival registered four hits and led the Rangers with 22:58 of icetime.
• Brandon Dubinsky led the team with six shots on goal and logged 18:03 of icetime.
• The Rangers return to action tomorrow, Mar. 7, when they will face-off against the Buffalo Sabres at Madison Square Garden (7:00 p.m.), to close out the back-to-back set. The game will be televised live on MSG Network and can be heard on 1050 ESPN Radio.
• Please note there is no morning skate scheduled for the Blueshirts prior to the game.

BTW Carp- how do you go about rating Dubinsky after a game like tonight? Do you just chalk it up to a bad game or is it just like he may never get to that level where he doesn’t make inexcusable plays?

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m just about all done with this team for this year. These Rangers bored me to tears tonight. So much so that I’m going to start getting my fishing gear ready for opening day, and start my plants for the garden.

I’ll probably watch a few more games, but after April 11th I’m going to be looking for something to do.

Playing against the best team in the league I think they could have done worse. Especially if Auld didn’t hold his own and play a pretty solid game. But you can’t deny the fact that when you look at Washington play it’s obvious exactly how much work the Rangers org needs to do to get this team to that next level.

C’mon guys and gals, can we just quit with the Jessiman thing already? That was all Maloney, he’s not here anymore. Gordie Clark has brought us MDZ and Anisimov and has been running the draft for 4 years now.

We’ll see how the next batch turn out. And there’s too much talent in the first round this year to mess up.

Trading Hank if he included one of the big3 would not have been the worst thing he done. Nothing can top Redden contract when noboby was bidding. I said it all along I would have sent LQ in a cap clearing package because the troops in front of him are never winning the cup.everyone freaks out that we can’t get rid of our only asset, but we have holes on D, a physcial guy, the O is so bad with 8-11 forwards I wouldn’t want. The only answer is to cut bait and rebuild without a goalie that’s going to be shellshocked by the time he is 29. We have the worst talent of any team trying for the playoffs, then i’m to believe we are going to make some great run. It’s over again just earlier

Sabres n Devils coming next. Do we think we should even watch this mess. And speakind of Mess u know he’s coming with Sather sitting aside next year, a disaster waiting to happen. Messier coming as GM is as goood as gold

Henrik’s only gonna be 29 next year. He’s still very young and has like 4-5 years left in his prime. Remember, when the Rangers came back after the lockout no one knew how good Henrik was gonna be and they were supposed to stink. It doesn’t become win the Cup for Henrik until he’s like 35.

The drafting has gotten progressively better. The beginning of the decade it was an F, now they’re up to like a B. Let’s see how this next crop comes up. I like the Staal/Anisimov/Cally/Dubi/Del Z/Grachev/US Juniors/Kundratek/etc. drafting so far.

We weren’t going to win the last 20, it is obviously important that we get as many points as possible, but the REAL points we need are games against the teams closest to us in the standings. I rather lose two points to the caps than the thrashers right now!

The major hole in this line up is still the lack of rugged d men. I still can’t believe that sather did not address that before the deadline.

The second caps goal falls directly on dubi….period. He had a chance to absolutely paste a cap into the boards and did not, that cap (i forget who it was) then passes the puck a pass or two later, in our net. Dubi is just very disappointing to me, he never seems to be physical when he needs to be…it is like he has sandy mccarthy syndrome or something.

orr carkner round four was kinda bush league by orr. I like colton, but he comes fresh onto the ice while carkner has been out there for over a minute, leaves his feet to throw a hit on a sen, then acts all punkish at the end of the fight because he ended up on top of a guy after the guy had been out on the ice forever and orr was fresh off the bench. BUSH LEAGUE as we like to say around here!

A couple of thoughts that have occurred to me during this game last night…..There ought to be a school for GMs. and Sather had ought to be the first guy to have a mandatory tour of duty there.

The more I see of Staal this season, the less impressed I’ve become of him. He has a single set pace that he plays at. Never seems to really exert himself in his skating and his passing and his shot making. He simply will not take hard slap shots on net, no matter how much time he has. He wrists everything. And on the rare occasions when he does take a slapper it is slow and tentative. When it comes ot defensemen around the league I can thinks of about 14, 15 I believe to be his superiors. I’d think seriously about including him in a trade that makes sense.

NOw…as to the Mets. A beautiful day at Space coast stadium and watched the Mets wunderkinder perform. Martinez walloped two enormous homers out of the park. Pelfrey still seems a bit lost out there. Bunch of folks I never heard of before..a smallish (by comparison) pitcher who has a ripping fastball..never picked up his name,, he hit a guy and almost clinked two others, but they avoided it. Jacobs hit a monster opposite field homer some 400 + feet out.

Whenever you talk to someone from the organization of the Rangers either from Management staff ( I know you never talk to the ….:) or from people from the Garden, do you ever have the impression they care if the Rangers win or not, or is it really so, as long as the Garden is sold out, everything is fine with them?????

Today when this rally takes place trying to make a statement and its seems to be as long as the Garden is soldout, everything is fine in Rangersland…

I would really like to hear your very honest assessment and do you plan to write a story in the paper about the rally ????

slowly but surely, people on this blog are starting to see how overrated Staal is. do not give him the big contract, try to trade in the off season, while he still may have some value. window to trade Hank is closing, he is going to end up a great goalie that never got out of the 2nd round. by the time the Rangers are a cup contender again, Hank will be done.

The coaching of these guys is absolutely attrocius. We do need to clean house but it really needs to start with our training staff. WE rarely ever do the little things that it takes to win a game. Watch Pitts and Wash come in on the forecheck, watch them cover any Ranger that feels like going towards the net that day.The good teams don’t effin poke check and they don’t glide towards the puck!Everything is a race in hockey. If you don’t get the puck first or if you don’t get on the right side of the man you are covering there is a good chance you will be beat. This coaching staff does not instill hockey fundamentals in these guys.
Fonzie may talk a good game but the proof is in the pudding. If I can point out all the coaching flaws on this team imagine what the opposition coaches see.

I beat you for five minutes as I can remember to have seen probably the first five minutes of second period before falling asleep as well even without the alcohol mix, you talked about..but I sat before the computer almost whole day for various soccer games :)

Thanks “The Mouth” i will definetly will use the link at 4.30 pm et and excited to hear, what you have to say about the best GM of the N H L :)

A team is the sum of it’s parts. You are right we have more holes in our lineup than most teams but if you can’t (or won’t) play strong fundamental hockey that has got to be on tortarella. If you can’t instill the basics in your team (which makes 35 million+) that is on torts. Watch other teams in this league without true superstars and you will see the same thing.Fore check hard, Crash the net, clear the net, take your man out of the play, ect.. these are things we don’t do consistantly.

We hated Renney for playing the fourth line in tight games in the third period, did we not witness Torts apply the same stupid methodology last night? (I was NOT a Renney fan). On coaching, why are all of our young players regressing? Aren’t players supposed to get better with experience?

Seriously, trade Hank at 28? Are you nuts? This isn’t NHL ’10, elite goalies don’t just grow on trees. Anyone else remember Mike Dunham? How many playoff series did he play in? Exactly.

Sather has always been the biggest detriment to this team, too bad Dolan doesn’t treat him like ABC…

Oh yeah, one silly point – I love how Sam mentions all of the sellouts in DC and how he always mentions how MSG is sold out (Despite “Tickets Still Available”). Hey Sam, please note that a sell out SHOULD constitute all of the seats being used, when was the last time we’ve seen that at MSG this year? Good thing they raised ticket prices on us and Sather promised a better team.

Forget it! I’ve been crabbing about the coaching staff ( or lack of it for the past three years now. ( Everybody seems to think I mean Tortorella. It’s the baswics … it’s hockey 101 that they seem to lack. Can’t pass, can’t shoot, glide when they should be breaking, dodging when they should be hitting ( not all ..but far too many than should be. And they come down from Hartford like this. Roszival,Staal,Girardi, Redden…when’s the last time you saw Staal take a really hard slap shot from the blue line area? (You know, like Gonchar and Orpik do.
Like Niedermeyer does. Like ALL the acknowledged defensemen do. and now even Del Zotto is starting to wrist so many shots…it’s catching for Pete’s sake.

So Tortorella blames Gaborik for not winning the game for the Rangers. Kind of like Sather when he blamed Bure for not playing hard enough through his knee problems. What kind of sad ego do they have that they cannot either accept responsibilty for their own coaching flaws or resort to blaming injured superstars (who are the only reason the team has a chance in the first place)?
The flaws on this team are all about the coach and the GM.

I know I have said this way to many times, but I will say it again. This team is not very good. Not only that but it’s not going to get any better, until they get out from under the stupid contracts, and thats going to take a few years. They can’t just dump these salarys, and I don’t think there are many teams out there just waiting to pick up these guys. it does seem though that Sather has a life time deal with Dolan. So all we can hope for is that he has learned a bit about what it takes to manage in todays NHL, after making so many stupid signings. It would be wonderful if we could just send these guys to Hartford and dump the salarys, but it does not work that way. So we put up with half baked disorganised bunch, called the New York Rangers, and unruley coach, who playes hunches, and likely spines wheels for answers to his teams lack of skill. It will be a while before things get better. On the bright side I thought Auld played pretty good last night.

kc,
IT’s odd how fickle a bunch we are. For years I’ve been saying the Rangers need to keep their highest paid player responsible (nobody has done it with Rozi or Drury yet), but Torts did it with Gaborik. Gabby has 2 goals in February and March. Guess what, in a shut-out game HE is expected to be the guy who steps up. Oh, he hurt his groin? Too bad, the a$$ h0le shouldn’t have played the bronze game in the olympics! It makes me so irate. Torts knows Gabby’s hurt and he’s struggling out there, and the reason Gabby’s hurt is because he pushed himself too much in the olympics.

Did Ovechkin score last night? Neither did Gaborik. Blaming Lundqvist and Gaborik for every loss is ridiculous. It’s management that needs to be held responsible for another lousy season. This management has never consistently supported their star players with good coaching or complementary players. They finally got Jagr who led the team for 3 years, and then they dumped him. Management rearranges the team every single season. When a team is lucky enough to have Lundqvist and Gaborik in their prime, they better figure out quick how to make it work. Enough with the annual rebuild.
I see Devils playing with ordinary players, yet they are more successful. What’s the difference? Coaches and management. That’s the disgrace. That’s all on Sather. That’s why he’s a laughingstock in the NHL, but we’re still stuck with him.

KC,
Sather is the difference, the coaching is generally the same (especially since the devils have had what, 5 or 6 coaching changes when they’ve been on the brink and they’ve still made the playoffs those years?) The true difference between the Rangers and Devils is the atmosphere. Rangers players are allowed to play with a sense of entitlement: ‘I’m being paid, I will play.’ While a Devil knows ‘if I don’t produce, I won’t play.’ When you constantly have that inner-competition, you give young guys a fervor to play hard and get a spot in the lineup. The vets are forced to earn their paychecks. Similarly, the Devils are a team built around many 2nd/3rd line players competing in this way, they aren’t one first liner, one second liner, a third line, and about 5-7 4th liners. Very different investment of money. Very different mentality. Who do I blame? Sather. There’s something fishy about two coaches who NEVER bench Drury and Rozi. Fire Sather rally tonight, btw.

And your lame excuse of “did Ovechkin score” doesn’t matter. Gaborik is a Ranger, so you should ask “did a Ranger score?” NO! Was time for Gabby to step up. Don’t come here for 7.5million as a goal scoring sniper and then expect a pardon when you don’t do your job.

Yeah Sather is to blame. Someone has to be. Couldn’t be the coach or the assistants .Never ever , could it be Avery instilling his poison ? Nope. Nor could it be Drury’s calm demeanor , “ahh let’s go get it boys”. Never , ever could it be the fans or the ice cuz the last loss was in washington.Could never be that old jinx of 1940 cuz I thought we buried it. That good old Salary Cap isnt hurting us ..is it? We aint used to “playing on the same field” Nawww !!! The problem possibly cant be our young defense core along with a wonky goalie. The coaching system is what it is so that cant be to blame. Is it “come along” yet…hard to tell. A gibbled up Superstar cant be the problem ..he played last game , gibbled mind you…Our problems could n’t possible be that our First line has 1 bought out player and a Waiver wire guy starting on it with a $7000000 player on the 3rd line. Carma shouldn’t play in this but it seems life doesn’t reward the fickle. Place is sold out so “fans” cant be to blame. Ownership pays the bills and pays someone to hire someone who hires another someone so ya cant really blame them.The blog is perty negative along with “glass is half full Rick” but no one ever reads this so that could never be to blame… Yeah it has to be Sather .If Sather was gone …all these things would be Magically all fixed.

turning on Gabby already! agree that he needs to step in a game like last nights, but he has been great this year. disagree about the Devils having ordinary talent. they have a team built the right way. top end talent guys leading the way, and role players who fit there role. meaning they have an actual 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines. the Rangers have 2, 4th lines, a 3rd line, and a 2nd/1st line.

bull dog, I agree. But before they got Kovalchuk they had one top line player (Parise). Now they have a top line, before then they had a couple 2nd lines, and a couple third lines. Obviously that’s a better setup than the Rangers have, as you commented.

Why is everyone so surprised still with the way this team plays? You’ve been watching this team all year long and something shocks you still? I’m not shocked or surprised…i kinda feel indifferent right now. Didn’t you guys get the memo? By not making big moves at the trade date line (besides bringing Olli in and getting rid of Kotalik and Higgins), the management is telling us that they are OK with whatever happens this year…they are planning for the next year already (which i think is a good thing) and so should you! So get your fishing gear out…start your gardens or plan your vacations…there be no long beard this season.

P.S. I’m going to the rally and I hope to see some of you there. I’ll have my Nikon camera with me and I’ll be wearing black Rangers hat and a black t-shirt that says “Half Man Half Amazing” lol find me!

CCCP,
Interesting point. They’re ‘accepting’ what will happen this year. They aren’t planning for next year, that would have meant trading Olli, Prospal, and Girardi away from drafts and prospects. While I agree, this team is not surprising anymore, the management is hoping they can hold on long enough for 2 home playoff games otherwise the three previously mentioned players would be on other teams already.

I quite honestly have no problem with the bottom portion of our roster or the way shelley has played. I blame the majority of the problems on coaching. Shelley can’t fight if he has no one to fight, I have not seen one guy challenge him that he has refused, that is because our coach (who I was so happy to get btw) doesn’t put him out in the right situations. He always seems to be out there with non-fighters, I mean when was the last fight prust had?

Torts is quickly falling out of favor with me. He benches redden every other game and redden play just as well (or just as horrible) as rozy and is waaaayyy more physical than rozy, but rozy never gets benched. He calls out avery all the time when he is one of the few players who actually leaves it on the ice. Dubi seems to make more mistakes than most forwards, but evidently gets the drury treatment and is never really punished. Avery plays better on the “edge” everyone in the league knows this, but torts will just not let him go there! If redden is sooo bad, why has torts not had someone from hartford called up? Is our hartford roster that bad perhaps? He does like the new back up goalie though (for what it’s worth, so do I)